Ode to girl trios
Three girlies up on a stage together. What do they have in common? They’re a trio. And everyone loves them.
Now more than ever, girl trios are making their names known across genres. On the surface, this feels kinda like a new thing. Then I thought back: girl* groups, specifically girl trios, have existed since before WWI. Every genre has had its own rendition, and now the greater music landscape is experiencing something of an “indie” (mostly figurative) takeover. I didn’t even realize how many trios are in my rotation/the rotation of the industry until I actually took the time to write a few of them down. Soon, it was hard trying to find a place for the list to stop.
*It’s important to note here that my use of the term “girl” in “girl groups/trios” is very fluid and does not refer strictly to one gender. Many people in these “girl trios” that I will mention fall on all sorts of places across the gender spectrum. Labeling things as “girl”-something, in my opinion, has evolved to a place to basically refer to those who are not cishet men (see: recent TikTok ‘girl dinner’ trend). Just making it clear that I do not say “girl” to exclude anyone of any nonconforming or fluid gender.
When thinking about the first in a line of hundreds of girl trios, the Boswell Sisters stick out. Martha, Connie, and Helvetia Boswell were three sisters from New Orleans who gained popularity in the 1920s for their vocal harmonies and vaudeville performances. This group inspired the Three X Sisters, who also got their start in vaudeville in the late 1920s, and the Andrews Sisters, among many others. The Andrews Sisters, specifically, gained massive popularity in the late 1930s, and experienced the height of their fame around WWII, solidifying the girl trio’s place in popular music.
Post WWII, we enter the Spector era of the Supremes, the Paris Sisters, and the Ronettes, among many others. What was interesting here was, with the exception of The Paris Sisters, the makeup of these trios moved away from groups of sisters and turned more towards three up-and-coming vocalists. This allowed for more tweaking to take place in the group make-ups, and of course, there were revolving doors of replacements for some of these groups (The Supremes alone had 10 women in and out of its lineup over the years). The sound shifted from doo-wap to align more with the rock and roll and Motown sounds that were soon to take over; not even the Ronettes were safe from Spector’s Wall of Sound production techniques that soon became synonymous with ’60s rock.
As time went on, girl trios were seeping into different genres rather than being centered on what was popular at one moment in time. By the ’90s, some girl trios took the form of riot grrrl three pieces like Skinned Teen out of London, and Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, and Bratmobile of Olympia, Washington. There’s been significant longevity for girl groups in this specific niche: all three of the Olympia-based groups have reunited in recent years, and newer generations have continued to crop up in the 2010s, most notably The Tuts out of the UK. On the opposite end of the spectrum from grunge, the Chicks (FKA Dixie Chicks) also made a name for themselves in the ‘90s-2000s country scene, eventually garnering Grammy-level praise. And of course, we can’t talk about the girl trio without mentioning Destiny’s Child, TLC, and Prince-bred Vanity 6 breaking through the R&B and popular music landscape at this time. Around the same time, the UK also experienced its own girl group craze that couldn't be contained to just trios: Atomic Kitten and the Sugababes basked in the glow the Spice Girls created in ’94 and kept the public hooked all the way through to Little Mix’s reign in the 2010s.
Naturally, girl trios have gone through some evolution. Whether blatantly or not, most girl trios of the past had a “lead” (think Beyoncé, Diana Ross, Patti LaBelle) with the other two members acting more as backup. The trios of today present more authentically as a group. I think the transition from lead-with-backups to three irreplaceable members skyrocketed when instruments were brought into the picture. For much of the ’60s and ’70s, girl trios were exclusively groups of vocalists: their “instrument” was their voice, and producers structured songs and performances in such a way that set one member up to be the main attraction. Once the trios became bands rather than groups of singers, the weight started to be distributed more evenly. There was also more opportunity for equality between members when the groups were forming on their own, without the input of managers or studio bigwigs. You can see this in the riot grrrl-era girl trios, especially: though Kathleen Hanna stood center stage at Bikini Kill shows, Tobi Vail and Kathi Wilcox were essential to the group and its sound, making it impossible to exist without one of them. This is true of many trios of today, as well.
Today’s girl trios take all forms, and recently it feels like there are more trios than ever. Some of the big names taking over the scene as of late include supergroup boygenius, sisters of the shimmering HAIM (sometimes the sister trope sticks), and college friends turned queer rock band MUNA. There’s also a cohort of smaller independent groups with trios like Kibi James (Bayonet Records), Girl Ray (Moshi Moshi Records), and Automatic (Stones Throw Records) gaining notoriety in recent years. Suffice it to say, girl trios are stronger than ever. There’s an appetite for these groups across all genres. The groups exist with each other, sometimes even cross-contaminating—MUNA is signed to Saddest Factory Records, the label imprint of Dead Oceans created by Phoebe Bridgers, of boygenius, herself. These two trios go so far as to routinely join each other on stage (most notably boygenius joining MUNA for “Silk Chiffon” at Coachella 2023, the slew of crossover happening in the UK at the end of the summer, as well as MUNA opening at boygenius’ MSG debut earlier this month). There seems to be a karmic circle of support going on in the world of girl trios, especially in 2023, and it’s just gosh dang lovely to see.
This is all to say, where music exists, there is a girl trio for you. Taking a sec to look back at the last 100 years of girl trios ruling the world made me smile, and I hope it (maybe) gave you some new groups to check out. May they live on for another 100 years!
